We have had a busy start to the year, especially for digital technologies in our school.
We are changing the platform for our e-portfolios to blogs this year. Anna and I trialled this last year and we are now rolling this out to the whole school, therefore the day was based mainly on how we are going to support teachers in implementing blogs in their classes through a number of PLO's over this term. We throughly planned the first PLO on Monday and have planned what we are going to focus on in the remaining PLO's.
We worked on transferring our school Writing and Reading Progressions into Google to enable them to be linked to the blogs and sites.
It was a very productive day, we got a lot done and even managed to enjoy a lovely lunch at Portersteak Grill :)
Welcome to my professional blog. I am a primary school teacher in Auckland, New Zealand. I have recently been appointed as an ICT Lead Teacher at my school and whilst I have had a bit of experience with computers and technology I am looking forward to gaining much more knowledge and experience to share with my colleagues and students. This blog will follow my learning journey in the strange and wonderful world of ICT! Wish me luck!
Friday, February 14, 2014
Friday, September 6, 2013
Blogs, eports, google and more...
So much to do, so little time!
There has been alot happening with e-learning this year and things will only be getting busier over the next term and a half so it was fantastic to sit down today with like-minded teachers and share ideas, collaborate and learn new things.
It was great to meet the new ICT Lead Teachers from Botany Downs School, Yasmine and Natalie and also catch up with Lyndal. We haven't had an opportunity to catch up with our cluster schools this year and it was interesting to hear how they are progressing with their e-learning etc.
The sMACkdown was informative as always. A couple of things I will take away are:
Anna and I worked on a presentation to the staff as we are reporting back on Wednesday about how our Blogs as e-portfolios have gone. We are really excited about presenting to the staff and sharing our findings with them. We have surveyed our children and got some parent feedback about how they have found using blogs as a platform. They were overwhelmingly positive in their feedback with the vast majority opting to stay with blogs rather than return to Knowledge Net. Looking forward to presenting to staff and hearing their thoughts about rolling it out to the whole school next year.
Our ICT Lead Teacher meeting today was cram-packed and productive but we could have used another day or two to get through everything we need to do! Yes I know...dream on!!
Looking forward to ULearn now...breakouts al booked...so excited...bring it on!
There has been alot happening with e-learning this year and things will only be getting busier over the next term and a half so it was fantastic to sit down today with like-minded teachers and share ideas, collaborate and learn new things.
It was great to meet the new ICT Lead Teachers from Botany Downs School, Yasmine and Natalie and also catch up with Lyndal. We haven't had an opportunity to catch up with our cluster schools this year and it was interesting to hear how they are progressing with their e-learning etc.
The sMACkdown was informative as always. A couple of things I will take away are:
- http://lingro.com/ - Paste a website address into lingro and every word is linked to a dictionary definition. Helpful for ESOL kids.
- https://www.collaaj.com/ -A better screencasting app than ShowMe!! It records video as well as audio/screen movement
Anna and I worked on a presentation to the staff as we are reporting back on Wednesday about how our Blogs as e-portfolios have gone. We are really excited about presenting to the staff and sharing our findings with them. We have surveyed our children and got some parent feedback about how they have found using blogs as a platform. They were overwhelmingly positive in their feedback with the vast majority opting to stay with blogs rather than return to Knowledge Net. Looking forward to presenting to staff and hearing their thoughts about rolling it out to the whole school next year.
Our ICT Lead Teacher meeting today was cram-packed and productive but we could have used another day or two to get through everything we need to do! Yes I know...dream on!!
Looking forward to ULearn now...breakouts al booked...so excited...bring it on!
Monday, July 1, 2013
ICT Lead Teacher Day 1 July 2013
We had a busy, productive meeting today.
Some key ideas that we covered today were:
Some key ideas that we covered today were:
- ePortfolios and how these are progressing. This term has been a major shift for me in terms of ePortfolios. I am one of two teachers at our school trialling individual blogs as a platform for ePortfolios this term. This has meant a huge amount of time setting up the blogs, introducing/teaching them to the students and analysing what is working and what isn't. It has been an exciting time, but also a bit stressful. We have Student Led Conferences on Thursday night and whilst the student blogs are mostly up to date, there are still gaps that need to be filled in over the next few days. Having said that the students are extremely proud of their blogs and love adding to them! In my opinion, they eclipse the old ePortfolio platform in that fact that they are much more user-friendly, easily accessible and can be individualised.
- Converting data from our server to Google sites. This will be happening over the next few months as we work towards getting a smaller server and using Google/iCloud/Dropbox for cheaper/free storage.
- The sMACdown is always interesting and a good way to share new resources etc. A couple of new things I picked up were prezi.com from Debbie which is a great presentation tool and WordFoto app. Will be giving these ago in my classroom.
- Setting up an iPad User Group within the school to support, share and motivate teachers in using iPads in their classrooms. We set three dates to hold these meetings. The first one will run like a sMACdown where people can share what they have been doing in their classrooms with iPads. We will also set up a Google site for iPad use in school which will be a great, on-going resource.
- We made good headway on our eLearning Progressions today. Debbie and I worked on Y3/4 learning intentions and managed to pretty much complete those. Next step sharing the LI's and ensuring we are all on the same track...then success criteria. Our aim is to get these finished by end of Term 3 and then trialling them in Term 4.
Great day today thanks to the amazing people in the team. Thanks guys, looking forward to our next meeting.
Now I have a BIG decision to make: Tedx or EducampAkl? Hmmmm....
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
ICT Lead Teacher Day 12 April
We had our first ICT Lead Teacher day of the year at the end of last term and it was a very productive but intense, fully packed day.
We had a huge discussion around a PMI the teachers at our school created about our student e-Portfolios. There was an overwhelming response from teachers with a range of issues. It took us a large amount of time to sort the issues raised in the PMI into relevant areas. It was an interesting exercise which enabled us to get a clear view of the main issues/areas concerning teachers and the where to next... Some are quick fixes that are easily addressed, whilst others will be addressed in a staff meeting with some PD and support for staff. Anna and I will also be creating some screen casts and developing the ICT google site as a tool for teachers to use for support. I'm sure many teachers don;t even know this exists and it will be a helpful tool once it has been developed.
I am looking forward to some challenges with ICT this year. My class and another senior class will be trialling Google Apps for Education and using a Blog platform for e-Portfolios instead on KnowledgeNet. My students are very excited about this and it will be interesting to see how these develop and whether they will be a viable option for e-Portfolios in the future.
So exciting times ahead...watch this space :)
We had a huge discussion around a PMI the teachers at our school created about our student e-Portfolios. There was an overwhelming response from teachers with a range of issues. It took us a large amount of time to sort the issues raised in the PMI into relevant areas. It was an interesting exercise which enabled us to get a clear view of the main issues/areas concerning teachers and the where to next... Some are quick fixes that are easily addressed, whilst others will be addressed in a staff meeting with some PD and support for staff. Anna and I will also be creating some screen casts and developing the ICT google site as a tool for teachers to use for support. I'm sure many teachers don;t even know this exists and it will be a helpful tool once it has been developed.
I am looking forward to some challenges with ICT this year. My class and another senior class will be trialling Google Apps for Education and using a Blog platform for e-Portfolios instead on KnowledgeNet. My students are very excited about this and it will be interesting to see how these develop and whether they will be a viable option for e-Portfolios in the future.
So exciting times ahead...watch this space :)
Friday, November 30, 2012
Creating a PLN on Twitter
I had joined Twitter a while ago but with no particular purpose in mind it fizzled out quite quickly.
This all changed after Ulearn 2012. I discovered a whole Personal Learning Network (PLN) was waiting for me on the Twitter platform and I have been an avid tweeter ever since!
I have found it motivating and inspiring to see what other teachers and educators are discussing and sharing. I have been able to share my learning with my fellow colleagues and tweeters which has been empowering personally and professionally.
This all changed after Ulearn 2012. I discovered a whole Personal Learning Network (PLN) was waiting for me on the Twitter platform and I have been an avid tweeter ever since!
I have found some very useful websites and apps through Twitter that I have used in my teaching or intend to use. Some of my favourites include:
- 6 Apps That Teach Math Concepts http://pinterest.com/pin/255227503854102279/
- Latest blogpost: Piktochart - a cool infographic tool for the classroomhttp://digitoolsforschools.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/piktochart.html
- Instagrok - http://www.instagrok.com/ - cool search engine for kids
- Aurasma - www.aurasma.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUddR6TNEpY
Some great education tweeters to follow are:
If you are not using Twitter as part of your PLN, I highly recommend it. Get tweeting, share and discuss your ideas, find inspiration, get motivated...
ICT lead teacher day
Our ICT Lead Leacher day today was at EPS. We introduced two new members to the EPS Lead Teacher team, Dillie and Debbie. They are both very keen and I am looking forward to working with them next year.
We started by discussing our proposed 2013 ICT mini expo. We have come up with a long list of workshop ideas but this is not an exhaustive list and can be added to so if you are reading this and have an idea by all means leave a suggestion!
Possible workshop titles:
Our mini sMACdown was useful as usual and I discovered a couple of great websites and apps that I didn't know about:
http://thinkerstoolbox.wikispaces.com/Toolbox - Thinkers Tool box. I am looking forward to exploring this site for some interesting resources and ideas.
http://www.20thingsilearned.com/en-US - e-book about technical terms used in the ICT world
My favourtie part of the Lead Teacher Day (apart from lunch of course!) is the hands-on session. Belinda shared a cool spin on a literacy unit she used to teach. You look at pictures from a sophisticated picture book, words are covered, discuss what is happening in the pictures, possible storylines etc. The students create their own stories based on the pictures - could be published in Book Creator. The real story is then read at the end of the unit.
We also looked at another couple of iPad apps - Storybots and Creative Book Builder. CBB was actually quite tricky to use and not as user friendly as Book Creator. I enjoyed using it though and created a fun little story - 25 days until Christmas.
Only 25 days to Christmas now...10 days of school. The countdown is on!
We started by discussing our proposed 2013 ICT mini expo. We have come up with a long list of workshop ideas but this is not an exhaustive list and can be added to so if you are reading this and have an idea by all means leave a suggestion!
Possible workshop titles:
- iPads/iPods - big picture, set up, management
- blogging
- QR codes
- Go Animate
- Animoto
- iMovie/Movie Maker - Creating movies
- Puppet Pals
- Creating eBooks
- Google Apps for Education (incl students)
- Chrome + Extensions
- Search engines for students
- Digital Citizenship for teachers and Digital Citizenship for students (teacherscouncil.org.nz, netsafe.org.nz)
- Minecraft?
- Maths ideas eg ALiM (NZ Maths), nrich.maths.org
- LEARNZ
- writers workshop
- Collaboration eg Skype, FaceTime
- Year Book/School Magazine
- PLN eg Twitter, EduCamp,
- Literacy ideas eg study ladder,
- Music eg Garageband
- Using ICT with Juniors
- Teacher Dashboard
Our mini sMACdown was useful as usual and I discovered a couple of great websites and apps that I didn't know about:
http://thinkerstoolbox.wikispaces.com/Toolbox - Thinkers Tool box. I am looking forward to exploring this site for some interesting resources and ideas.
http://www.20thingsilearned.com/en-US - e-book about technical terms used in the ICT world
My favourtie part of the Lead Teacher Day (apart from lunch of course!) is the hands-on session. Belinda shared a cool spin on a literacy unit she used to teach. You look at pictures from a sophisticated picture book, words are covered, discuss what is happening in the pictures, possible storylines etc. The students create their own stories based on the pictures - could be published in Book Creator. The real story is then read at the end of the unit.
We also looked at another couple of iPad apps - Storybots and Creative Book Builder. CBB was actually quite tricky to use and not as user friendly as Book Creator. I enjoyed using it though and created a fun little story - 25 days until Christmas.
Only 25 days to Christmas now...10 days of school. The countdown is on!
Friday, March 16, 2012
ICT lead teacher meeting
I always look forward to the ICT Lead Teacher Days and this was another great day. Thanks to Botany Downs School for hosting today!!
The highlight of the day was a visit to Stonefields School. What an amazing school!! There were so many interesting things to see and learn from...
I am looking forward to building a relationship with Bridget's class through our blogs. We are both Year 4 classes and it will be interesting to see what they are doing and sharing ideas.
Can't wait till our next session...:)
The highlight of the day was a visit to Stonefields School. What an amazing school!! There were so many interesting things to see and learn from...
- MLE - open, collaborative learning environments that have obviously been thought through carefully and with a clear puspose in mind.
- Collaborative planning between the teachers in each hub amongst three teachers using Google Docs. Some teachers are using Google Docs in our school but not collaboratively. I think this is a fabulous way to do planning. It makes sense to draw on people's strengths and share ideas etc.
- The furniture in the school is minimal yet functional and practical. The spaces weren't cluttered with "stuff" and provided areas for the children to find their own space for learning.
- The "Breakthrough" idea is a fabulous way for the children to pursue their own interests and make their learning purposeful. I love this approach to learning. It makes sense and anables the children to learn in a way that suits them and not be restricted to one learning or teaching style.
- I liked the idea of having a plasma screen instead of an data projector or interactive whiteboard. The pictures are very clear and they are much more practical for children to use.
- The school has a clear vision of where they are going and how they are going to achieve this.
- There was not a lot of book work, most of the learning/recording is done in Google docs and other applications. Each child has their own Google doc account in which to record their learning.
I am looking forward to building a relationship with Bridget's class through our blogs. We are both Year 4 classes and it will be interesting to see what they are doing and sharing ideas.
Can't wait till our next session...:)
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